Global Gourmet/United States

United States

As a nation of immigrants, it is no surprise that the cuisine of the United States is incredibly diverse. The cuisine of the Native Americans was of course the first Amercian cuisine, and it lent a great deal to not only American cooking but food around the world: ingredients such as turkey, potatoes, corn, and squash. Superimposed on this is the massive contribution of the various immigrant groups, and many dishes considered quintessentially American in fact have their roots in other lands. For example, apple pies, pizza, runzas, chowder, and hamburgers are all either identical to, or derived from, European dishes. Burritos and tacos similarly have their origins in Mexico. However, many of food items now enjoyed worldwide either originated in the United States or else was substantially altered by American chefs. Additionally, since a lot of what is considered American Cuisine is rustic rather than elaborate, much of American food culture isn't immediately recognized as being "cuisine". Salt water taffy, clam chowder, baked beans, barbecue, candy bars, and most fast food items being the some of the better known examples.

Immigrant Influence

Some describe American cuisine as the result of each immigrant community simply making use of whatever they could grow in their new home, or press into service from America's own native plants and game animals. This overlooks an important characteristic of American cooking, the fusion of multiple ethnic or regional styles into completely new cooking styles. The cuisine of the South, for example, has been heavily influenced by immigrants from Africa, France, and Mexico, among others. To a great or lesser degree, many of the dishes that were imported from elsewhere have been elaborated on extensively once adopted by Americans. Pizza, hamburgers, and ice cream are dishes imported from Europe but have attained a diversity within the United States far exceeding anything found in their home countries. Furthermore, American cooking has been widely exported outside its borders. Tex-Mex, Creole, and barbecue restaurants can be found in cities all around the world, and fast-food burger bars and pizzerias are even more popular.

Hamburger

One of the most famous United States food. Given that the United States is a much larger area than, say, Europe, it is not surprising that distinct regional variations have evolved. The cuisine of the East Coast, for example, makes use of fish and seafood to much greater degree than that of the Midwest, where corn and beef are much more readily available. To some degree, easy transportation of perishable foodstuffs has diminished these differences in recent years, but many Americans will still associate certain foods with specific places, such as steak with Omaha and lobster with Boston.

Apple Pie

An apple pie or apple tart is a fruit pie (or tart) in which the principal filling ingredient is apples. This pastry is generally used top-and-bottom, making a double-crust pie. An exception is the Tarte Tatin. The best cooking apples (culinary apples, colloquially cookers), such as the Bramley or Granny Smith, are crisp and acidic. The fruit for the pie can be fresh, canned, or reconstituted from dried apples. This affects the final texture, and the length of cooking time required, but it has no effect on the flavour of the pie. Dried or preserved apples were originally substituted at times when fresh fruit was unavailable. n what would become the United States, the apple pie had to wait for carefully planted pips, brought in barrels across the Atlantic, to become fruit-bearing apple trees. In the meantime, the colonists were more likely to make their pies, or "pasties", of meat than of fruit; and the main use for apples, once they were available, was in cider. But there are American apple-pie recipes, both manuscript and printed, from the 18th century, and it has since become a very popular dessert. "As American as apple pie" is a common saying in the United States. However, the expression (its full form being "As American as motherhood and apple pie") is clearly metaphorical, rather than literally ascribing an American origin to either apple pie or motherhood, since both motherhood and apple pie predate the United States. To some, the saying expresses the feeling that the concept "America" is not just geographical, but is instead—along with motherhood and apple pie—something wholesome.

French Fries

French fried potatoes (North America; often shortened to French fries or fries) or chips (outside North America) are long pieces of potato that have been deep-fried. French fries have numerous variants, from "thick-cut" to "shoestring", "curly", and "waffle-cut". They can also be coated with breading and spices to create "seasoned fries", or cut thickly (often with the skin left on) to create "steak fries". Sometimes fries are cooked in the oven as a final step in the preparation (having been coated with oil during preparation at the factory): these are often sold frozen, and are called "oven fries." Many attribute the dish to France, and offer as evidence a notation by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. "Potatoes deep-fried while raw, in small slices" are noted in a manuscript in Thomas Jefferson's hand (circa 1801) and the recipe almost certainly comes from his French chef, Honoré Julien. In addition, from 1813 ("The French Cook" by Louis Ude) on recipes for what can be described as "french fries" occur in popular American cookbooks. Recipes for fried potatoes in French cookbooks date back at least to Menon's "Les soupers de la cour" (1755). However, according to the Food Reference Web site, the first reference to French fried potatoes in English was in 1894 in O. Henry's Rolling Stones, "Our countries are great friends. We have given you Lafayette and French fried potatoes." rench fries are almost always salted just after cooking. They are then served with a variety of condiments, most notably ketchup, tomato sauce, hot sauce, mayonnaise, tzatziki, tartar sauce, fry sauce, Ranch dressing, brown sauce, vinegar (especially malt vinegar) or gravy. he logical explanation of the origin of the North American name of the dish is that it derives from potatoes that have been "fried in the French manner". The English verb fry is ambiguous: it can refer to both to sautéing and to deep-fat frying, while the French pommes frites or patates frites ("fried potatoes") refers unambiguously to deep frying.

Popcorn

Popcorn or popping corn is a type of maize which puffs up when it is heated in oil or by dry heat. Special varieties of corn are grown to give improved popping yield. Some wild types will pop, but the cultivated strain is Zea mays L. subsp. mays (Everta Group), which is a special kind of flint corn. Popcorn was first developed by Native Americans thousands of years ago. In 1948, popcorn ears dating back 5,600-years were discovered in bat caves in New Mexico.